Posted on 01/22/2016 4:35:15 AM PST by BeadCounter
Russia's president destroyed video of himself having sex with children, an ex-KGB spy claimed. Now a British inquiry has found that the Kremlin leader 'probably approved' assassinating him for it.
LONDON - A prominent Russian dissident was assassinated in London with a deadly dose of radioactive poison because he had claimed that Vladimir Putin was a pedophile, according to an independent British inquiry.
The hit was "probably" carried out on the personal orders of the Russian president.
The allegationâthat Putin had used his position as head of the Russian intelligence service to destroy video evidence of himself having sex with underage boysâwas "the climax" of an increasingly bitter personal feud between Alexander Litvinenko and the Kremlin leader.
Sir Robert Owen, a retired High Court judge, found that this personal animosity, combined with Litvinenko's continued criticism of the Kremlin and the FSB, of which he was once a senior member, was the motive behind his brazen murder in a Mayfair hotel via a pot of green tea laced with the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in November 2006.
"The FSB operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr. Patrrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin," Owen told the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday.
"There was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr. Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other" he wrote in his report. "Mr. Litvinenko made repeated highly personal attacks on President Putin culminating in the allegation of pedophillia in July 2006."
The claim was made in an article on the Chechen separatist website Chechenpress shortly after Putin was filmed lifting the T-shirt and kissing the stomach of a young boy at the Kremlin.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
I doubt this.
This is weird: “The Government has ordered potentially vital information about whether murdered former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko had links with the British intelligence services to be withheld from his inquest.” (see below)
Sounds like the UK government is hiding something:
Censored: MI5 links to murdered Litvinenko
Government acts ahead of former Russian spy’s inquest, as widow’s lawyer says killing was ‘state-sponsored terrorism’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/censored-mi5-links-to-murdered-litvinenko-8160954.html
The Government has ordered potentially vital information about whether murdered former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko had links with the British intelligence services to be withheld from his inquest.
Alexander Litvinenko’s father calls his son a traitor - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9057560/Alexander-Litvinenkos-father-calls-his-son-a-traitor.html
The father of murdered Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko has dramatically withdrawn his claims that his son was killed in London on Vladimir Putin’s orders, branding his own son a traitor who may have deserved to die.
British intelligence services paid Litvinenko £2,000 a month
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5b3678e-aae8-11e4-81bc-00144feab7de.html#axzz3xslh52oN
do I really need the sarcasm tag?
Me, too. But, maybe it will frighten Barky.
The guy was a double agent, playing for both sides at one time or another.
Problem was he did not have a funded escape plan. He had to keep playing for Brit Intel for his income. Had he disappeared shortly after leaving Russia, he would be alive and well today, but he stayed in the game. Russia is the prime suspect, but the Brits could have done him to tidy things up.
This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.
The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.
Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)
http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx
************************************************************
Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
____________________________________________
"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."
*********************************************************
Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015
"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."
"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."
Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.
Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.
But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."
It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."
The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.
"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."
His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."
The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
*********************************************************
BBC, 27 July 2015
Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'
"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.
Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.
Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469
************************************************************
Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'
"Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
___________________________________
"RT [Russia Today] has been called a propaganda outlet for the Russian government[10][11][12] and its foreign policy[10][11][13][14] by former Russian officials[15] and by news reporters,[16] including former RT reporters.[17][18][19]
It has also been accused of spreading disinformation.[20][21][22]
The United Kingdom media regulator Ofcom has threatened RT with sanctions because of repeated violations of its rules on impartiality.[23]
The network states that it offers a 'Russian perspective' on global events.[24]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29
_________________________________________
The following article is from last December (2014)
"Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.
Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.
The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.
Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.
Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
_______________________________________________________
Here's something from 2013 on Mikhail Lesin, again, the creator of Russia Today (RT), who was found dead in a Washington DC hotel last month (Nov 2015)...
The recent return of Vladimir Putin's longtime eminence grise, Vladislav Surkov, to the Kremlin was widely discussed in the media. Much less noticed was the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, Putin's former information minister, as the new head of Gazprom-Media, Russia's largest, and de facto state-run, media group, which incorporates several broadcast, print, and online outlets.
Lesin's return to a senior position is no less symbolic than that of Surkov, and says a lot about the Kremlin's plans for Russia's few remaining uncensored media.
Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.
The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.
In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.
While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly.
On July 20, 2000, while still under a prosecutorial recognizance, Gusinsky signed a deal to sell his media outlets to Gazprom that included "Annex 6," which provided for the "termination of the criminal prosecution against Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinskiy in connection with the criminal case initiated against him on 13 June 2000, his reclassification as a witness in the said case and suspension of the precautionary measure prohibiting him from leaving [the country]." "Annex 6" was personally signed by Information Minister Mikhail Lesin.
In its 2004 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found the NTV owner's arrest to have been politically motivated and in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, emphasizing in particular that "the facts that Gazprom asked the applicant to sign the July agreement when he was in prison, that a State minister [Lesin] endorsed such an agreement with his signature, and that a State investigating officer later implemented that agreement by dropping the charges strongly suggest that the applicant's prosecution was used to intimidate him."
In the end, Gusinsky refused to give up NTV (once out of Russia, he annulled the deal as having been signed under duress). The offices of Russia's largest independent television channel were forcibly taken over by Gazprom-installed security guards in the early hours of April 14, 2001. TV6, a smaller independent channel that sheltered former NTV journalists, was shut down by the authorities in January 2002. The journalists found another short-lived home in TVS, Russia's last nationwide independent television channel, which was taken off the air in June 2003. By this time, the regime no longer cared for appearances and saw no need to hide behind "legal" decisions of obedient courts: the TVS signal was switched off by a direct order of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin, who cited 'viewers' interests" as the reason for the decision.
After this state campaign against major media outlets, Lesin left the spotlight, only occasionally surfacing in the news, for instance, when he co-founded RT [Russia Today], the Kremlin's English-language propaganda mouthpiece.
His return as the new director general of Gazprom-Media could signal another attack on media pluralism in Russia. A likely target could be Ekho Moskvy radio, which, unlike other Gazprom-Media outlets (including the present pro-Kremlin NTV), continues to maintain an independent editorial line and invite opposition leaders to its studios. Many in the Russian media community took Lesin's appointment as a grim sign.
Interestingly, Lesin may become one of the first senior Putin regime officials to face consequences for his involvement in human rights abuses. Earlier this year, civil society groups reportedly proposed Lesin's name for inclusion in the US blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes for Russian officials involved in human rights violations.
The next update of the US list may come in December. Meanwhile, sources in the European Parliament indicate that Lesin may be placed on a European Union visa blacklist. This would come as bad news to Putin's media enforcer: according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Lesin owns a 2 million, euro estate in Finland's Turku Archipelago, purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. This would indeed be a timely and appropriate message, that helping a dictatorship to muzzle the free media and enjoying the comfort of the Western world are no longer compatible.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer
_______________________________________________________
List of journalists killed in Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
Russia's Director of Military Intelligence Dies Unexpectedly
The Wall Street Journal ^ | Jan. 4, 2016 | Paul Sonne
Since you need to subscribe or log-in to access the article at WSJ, here below is the same from another source...
___________________________________________
MOSCOW-The director of Russia's military intelligence agency has died unexpectedly, according to a short statement released Monday on the Kremlin website, which didn't specify the cause of his death.
Col. Gen. Igor Sergun had run the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia's General Staff, known as the GRU, since late 2011. He was 58 years old.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a statement released to the Interfax news agency, said Col. Gen. Sergun died suddenly on Sunday. Mr. Shoigu's statement offered no additional details.
The military intelligence chief joined the Soviet military in 1973 and became director of the secretive GRU and deputy chief of Russia's general staff in 2011, according to his official biography on the Russian Defense Ministry website. He served in military intelligence since 1984, according to the biography.
Last year, the U.S. and European Union sanctioned Col. Gen. Sergun after Russia annexed Crimea and backed a rebel uprising in east Ukraine.
Western and Ukrainian officials have accused the GRU, one of the most important parts of Russia's foreign intelligence apparatus, of playing a sizable role in the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the military intelligence chief for dedicating his life to the motherland in a message to his friends and relatives that the Kremlin press service released to Russian newswires on Monday.
"His colleagues and subordinates knew him as a real military officer, and experienced and competent commander, a person of great courage and a true patriot," Mr. Putin said. "They respected him for his professionalism, strength of character, honesty and integrity."
http://www.advfn.com/news_Russias-Director-of-Military-Intelligence-Dies_69876453.html
There is more evidence to support Larry Sinclair’s numerous homosexual encounters with Obama than anything about Putin. Putin would be a better president of the USA than Obama.
The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.
" 'When will you stop cursing Putin? He'll kill you for that.' She was completely serious," Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.
-snip-
Nemtsov, 55, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Friday near midnight as he walked on a bridge near the Kremlin with a female companion.
Trump: Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so, you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. Lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity, and that's the way it is.
I claim you are a pedophile. Now prove you are not.
See it’s easy to make and accusation. Alot harder to prove it’s false.
Unfortunately, yes, considering the Putinista infestation on this site now. Sad but true. Can't understand why it's been allowed to happen.
British newspaper The Guardian notes that recently, readers have been complaining of pro-Russia propaganda being posted in the comments section of articles about Russia and Ukraine.
One reader wrote to The Guardian:
"One need only pick a Ukraine article at random, pick any point in the comments at random, and they will find themselves in a sea of incredibly aggressive and hostile users (the most obvious have accounts created since February 2014 ... but there also exist those who registered with the Guardian before the high point of the crisis) who post the most biased, inciteful [sic] pro-Kremlin, anti-western propaganda that seems as if it's taken from a template, so repetitive are the statements. Furthermore, these comments are consistently capturing inordinate numbers of 'recommends', sometimes on the order of 10 to 12 times what pro-Ukrainian comments receive."
Guardian comment moderators believe this is an orchestrated campaign.
Russia has worked hard to make people believe that the country is supporting the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and defending those people against some type of threat. These "comment mills" play into that strategy.
Last year, The Atlantic wrote about how the Russian government apparently pays people to "sit in a room, surf the Internet, and leave sometimes hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers."
This practice isn't new, according to The Atlantic. But it can stifle open discussion about political issues in Russia, giving a louder voice to those who support the Kremlin.
http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-paying-people-to-post-pro-russia-propaganda-in-comments-2014-5
http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america
____________________________
Kremlin pays internet trolls to flatter Putin
Ben Hoyle - Moscow
October 11 2013
Russian investigative journalists and bloggers have uncovered an army of internet trolls paid to pour invective on the Kremlin's opponents and heap praise on President Putin.
Posing as job applicants, the reporters discovered the government hacks working at a small company called the St Petersburg Internet Research Agency. ..."
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3891720.ece
I don't know much about the pedophile accusations, haven't really read any of this stuff yet, but even you must admit this is a very creepy photo:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.